I now feel my life is "less"...
How can I join this Power Surfer club?

LOL, you made me laugh ! I don't know, follow multiple technical/ raging threads here at Anands, follow current tech news on Google, maybe search for new meal or food ideas and or recipes, the local weather, your web email, ESPN , how to fix your furnace, leaking shower drain, or garage door?
It's not to hard to open many browser instances, if you let the organ between your ears flex it's 'muscle'. !

Having enough memory is definitely important, but what is more important is having a browser that understands how to isolate tabs from one another.

I really like Firefox (use it as my main browser), but it is completely horrible at keeping tabs from affecting one another. Case in point, if you are loading a javascript-heavy page and try to switch to a different tab, the whole browser will hang until the JS finishes loading. Or if you're typing in the address bar on one tab and then notice it hanging because another tab is running some JS. Multiply this out by 100 and the probability of SOME tab running some heavy process is damn near one, which slows the whole browser down to the speed of molasses.

2. Switching tabs is not very CPU intensive. However I don't know which browsers if any support heavy multithreading in the first place.

So you think an i7-3770k won't make a difference as compared to an i5-3570k?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lehtv

5. None.

So leave Indexing on?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lehtv

To people who have lots of tabs open: Why not just have multiple firefox instances with a limited number of tabs each? I would find it incredibly annoying to use the drop down list for switching tabs, especially when it gets so full that you need to scroll down. Having multiple instances would also make it easier to manage groups of tabs

I generally run 2 or 3 instances/windows - and having multi-rows gets rid of any scroll problem. You can normally fit around 37 on each row on a 27" screen. Mulit-rows makes for very easy access.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrightCandle

I don't know how you open your tabs but I tend to use chromes open all feature for daily read sites.

I haven't used Chrome for a while because last time I tried it, it didn't allow for "multi-rows" of Tabs. Is that still the case? If so, makes managing very large numbers of Tabs less nice.

With the latest Nightly Builds, the Tabs aren't even "active" until you first click on them after a restart. But even with that, it doesn't take long for 6GB of RAM on an old i7-920 to be fully chewed up with 100+ Tabs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrightCandle

If you open on mass like me then lots of cores also help to smooth it out.

So you think an i7-3770k will make a difference as compared to an i5-3570k?

Quote:

Originally Posted by notty22

I also use, Adblock plus and Noscript with the latest firefox release.

same here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mfenn

Having enough memory is definitely important, but what is more important is having a browser that understands how to isolate tabs from one another.
... So yeah, if you want to have a ton of tabs open, just use Chrome.

So can you have multi-rows of Tabs in Chrome? Is there a Tab Mix Plus equivalent? Is the equivalent of Session Manager as good?

So is there basic consensus that the gfx card & Mem on it will have nothing to do with it? Likewise the paging file? And that the quantity of RAM is likely the biggest factor?

What about the 'resuming from sleep' factor? It's always worse after a resume from sleep.

LOL, you made me laugh ! I don't know, follow multiple technical/ raging threads here at Anands, follow current tech news on Google, maybe search for new meal or food ideas and or recipes, the local weather, your web email, ESPN , how to fix your furnace, leaking shower drain, or garage door?
It's not to hard to open many browser instances, if you let the organ between your ears flex it's 'muscle'. !

There are few different scenarios that determine whether the HT is worth going for:

Assumptions
Given you have enough RAM to load all the pages you dont need to worry about paging too much.

1) If you opening pages individually.

Then an SSD isn't necessary because your IO on the cache is lighter.
You dont need lots of CPU performance because that only really occurs on badly behaved pages and when opening lots of tabs at the same time.

2 If you open pages in groups at the same time.

Then an SSD will help reduce time spent in IO due to the large amount of small IOs occurring to cache the pages and cookies.
Then a faster CPU with more cores will improve performance quite a bit. 4 cores + HT will be smoother up to more parallel threads than without the HT.

Really depends on your surfing style. If your (1) then a dual core is probably going to be indistinguishable from a quad. A quad will help if you open pages 4+ at a time and HT will help once you start opening 10 pages at a time. That is my experience.

I open 12-20 pages at a time and it can max out a 3930k for a few seconds.

If you're opening a lot of tabs at once then you want a lot of threads. And an SSD. Processor speed and RAM size are not that important.... as long as you have enough RAM. 100 tabs of your typical websites will only consume 1-2GB.

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There are few different scenarios that determine whether the HT is worth going for: ...

There will be plenty of RAM - 16GB.

Re opening tabs individually or in groups, at first there will be say 130+ tabs opened just on opening Firefox. Even though with the latest Nightlies, as mentioned, tabs don't become active until they're clicked.

As for opening tabs subsequent to that, sometimes you might open multiple links from a page of research but it's still one at a time, even if in quick succession.

So if you imagine a base of say 130+ tabs with more tabs being opened and closed frequently - and sometimes in a new instance(s).

Re Chrome, you didn't mention if anythings changed re multi-rows, ie. "I haven't used Chrome for a while because last time I tried it, it didn't allow for "multi-rows" of Tabs. Is that still the case? " - How do you easily access 100+ Tabs without scrolling/selecting? Is the Session Manager function the equal of Firefox? ie. regular backups and easy saving & loading of sessions.

And anything on the resume from sleep issue?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sm625

If you're opening a lot of tabs at once then you want a lot of threads. And an SSD. Processor speed and RAM size are not that important.... as long as you have enough RAM. 100 tabs of your typical websites will only consume 1-2GB.

Lots of RAM and an SSD will be a given. Re the estimates people are putting on the RAM resources used up by large numbers of tabs, I think they're generally under.

Don't forget, Firefox can also remember closed tabs (as many as you want, often 50+) including the tab's history. My experience is that 6GB is easily chewed when maintaining a high number of Tabs.

To people who have lots of tabs open: Why not just have multiple firefox instances with a limited number of tabs each? I would find it incredibly annoying to use the drop down list for switching tabs, especially when it gets so full that you need to scroll down. Having multiple instances would also make it easier to manage groups of tabs

I do have multiple Firefox windows, but they're all one "instance". I use Tab Mix Plus so I can have multiple rows of tabs. Even so, I rarely have more than 40 (four rows of ten) open in one browser window.

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So can you have multi-rows of Tabs in Chrome? Is there a Tab Mix Plus equivalent? Is the equivalent of Session Manager as good?
-

No, you can't have multiple rows of tabs in Chrome. You can set it so that the tabs are listed along the left side of the page in a column though. You can fit A LOT of tabs in a vertical list without losing the titles (obviously). You also get a chance to make use of some otherwise underutilized screen space.

That article doesn't really say anything other than "Chrome uses more memory than Firefox", which is completely obviously. The reason that Chrome took so much longer in the test is because the machine running Chrome ran out of memory and started swapping.

It says absolutely nothing about my point, which is that Firefox's tab isolation is complete garbage. That makes browser is effectively unusable at large numbers of tabs because of constant hitching and stuttering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MavAnan

But aside from the Firefox/Chrome debate, anything more on the other issues re hardware/config factors? Thanks

Not really. Make sure you have enough memory is all that there is to it. After that, it is purely a question of software optimization.

I'm going to describe my girlfriend's browsing habits. They are amazing and I've never seen anything like them.

She has sometimes 2-300 tabs open in Chrome in multiple windows. She loves art and design, so she is constantly browsing fashion, jewelry and art websites looking at things and studying them. Basically, often she'll find a website she likes and open up a new tab for every item she likes the look of. This results in MONSTER TABS

She has a Samsung Sandy Bridge laptop (decent dual) with 6GB of ram. The ram is basically ALL used. When she either needs to open or close windows, the laptop has to start shifting things in and out of swap and moving things around in ram to either free space or make space for something else (yes, sometimes closing things down on her machine takes longer than opening more things up!).

Her CPU is usually around 50-80% utilization (I'm going to look into those apps mentioned before that disable flash and scripts, etc!), but even if it maxes out, the PC/Chrome is more than smart enough to prioritise things so CPU bottleneck isn't really a problem.

For her, a decent SSD would speed her browsing up 100x over. When she starts her laptop from a cold boot, she generally has to turn wi-fi off otherwise Chrome takes 10-30 minutes to load (I don't even know any more) and thrashes her 750GB hard disk constantly. The pages then try to load, realise there's no connection and give an error, meaning they load a lot faster (and then she can refresh them later if she needs the page). I guess when I finally convince/FORCE her to put a decent SSD in I will also get rid of the 2GB stick and put another 4 in, disable all page files and prefetch and see how it goes. My worry with her and an SSD is that she'd kill it fairly quickly with the constant writes as the system swaps in and out of RAM and page when she changes tabs and does other things. She doesn't mind it too much (compared to how slow her older laptops got, this is still lighting fast to her), but when I try to use her laptop to quickly check something sometimes I basically CAN'T (and I'm used to a fairly high end desktop, so this usually results in me rage quitting) .

I generally have 20-50 tabs open (50 or so if I renew my old forum habits ) and they generally load through my 14mbps ADSL (I think Chrome mostly writes everything to the HD when you close the browser) and SSD in 10-15 seconds or so.

So anyway, to the original question, I'd say SSD, SSD, SSD, SSD, SSD! As long as you have a sensible amount of ram (4gb+) and a decent dual core processor, you will run into no problems with 100 tabs. 100 tabs, in my own very personal experience, is an amateur's game!

Edit:
I'd also recommend you make sure you experiment with all of your favourite browsers. Chrome is absolutely AMAZING at holding a lot of tabs open and remaining stable and fast.

Edit Edit:

Quote:

No, you can't have multiple rows of tabs in Chrome. You can set it so that the tabs are listed along the left side of the page in a column though. You can fit A LOT of tabs in a vertical list without losing the titles (obviously). You also get a chance to make use of some otherwise underutilized screen space.

How do you enable this? All I can find from googling is people complaining that they took the feature away...

Yes, did you read mine? I find it surprising, even in a world of diverse opinion, that someone could suggest "it has something better than multiple rows". Put 200 tabs in a vertical list and see where it goes. Each to their own tastes of course but a quick net perusal shows that the inability to have multi-rows is one of Chrome's most often mentioned shortcomings and the thing that holds back many Firefox users from even contemplating a move.

And re the article, we'll have to agree to disagree. I think talk of "high" numbers is too subjective -this is about seriously high tab numbers, not a mere 50 or so. So lets make the figure 200. See how Chrome copes with 200 tabs. I just tried it on my system, ie. 200 in Chrome followed by the same 200 in Firefox. Firefox handled it infinitely better, not to mention ease of selection.

But anyway, I'm not even sure why this has become a browser preference discussion because the original query has nothing to do with browser preference and it would be much more useful if it returned on point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirCanealot

I'm going to describe my girlfriend's browsing habits. They are amazing and I've never seen anything like them. She has sometimes 2-300 tabs open in Chrome in multiple windows.

Kudos to your gf, she has a lot more likeminded friends than you think.

But anyway, I'm not even sure why this has become a browser preference discussion because the original query has nothing to do with browser preference and it would be much more useful if it returned on point.

Please refer back to my second post in the thread as to why is has to be a browser preference discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mfenn

Having enough memory is definitely important, but what is more important is having a browser that understands how to isolate tabs from one another.

I don't know how to explain it more clearly than this. There is a fundamental design decision/issue/flaw (whatever you want to call it) in Firefox that precludes it from being responsive when many tabs are open.

You can buy the most powerful computer imaginable, but beyond a certain point that will not help due to the design of the software. Firefox runs all its tabs as threads in a single process, which means that they share a memory address space, which means that they must use a lot of locks to access shared data structures. Chrome uses a multi-process model that runs each tab in its own process with its own memory address space, meaning that each tab needs a full copy everything in memory, but that there are far fewer (almost no) locks. Taking and waiting on locks is extremely slow.

This is an expression of the fundamental time vs. space tradeoff in computer science. If you want something to be very space (meaning memory space) efficient (Firefox), it is naturally going to be slower than something that uses more memory with "redundant" copies of data (Chrome).

So, if you want to handle more tabs faster, switch to Chrome and buy a ton of memory.

Please refer back to my second post in the thread as to why is has to be a browser preference discussion.

I don't think it has to be a browser preference discussion at all.

I don't know how to explain it more clearly than this. There is a fundamental design decision/issue/flaw (whatever you want to call it) in Chrome that precludes it from being responsive when very many Tabs are open because it runs each Tab in its own process with its own memory address space. This means if you have 200 Tabs open (and the mix is constantly changing/expanding) your RAM is always pushed to its limits (unless you have a theoretically endless supply). To add to that, there is no easy way of selecting Tabs in Chrome when you have such a large number.

Now possibly, if you have an endless supply of RAM and don't mind that you can not easily select any of your 200+ Tabs, you might not mind.

Now because I don't have endless RAM to test with, I can't see how much RAM Chrome will chew (with room to spare) with 200 Tabs open. Very shortly I'll have 16GB and will try with that. But with 6GB (and 12GB), Chrome chewed it up in no time with much fewer Tabs than we're talking about. Not to mention, selecting Tabs (when there's a very high number) is very rudimentary. And it was DEFINITELY no faster switching between Tabs in Chrome than switching between Tabs in the latest Nightly x64 build. Nightly x64 was more efficient in speed & smoothness when switching.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mfenn

So, if you want to handle more tabs faster, switch to Chrome and buy a ton of memory.

I will do the same test with 16GB and see if there's any difference. I doubt there will be - but even if there is, it would make no difference to browser selection because it's not possible to effectively manage 200 tabs in Chrome with it's current limitation on Tab placement. That is a fundamental design flaw in Chrome, ie. multi-rows are not possible. Hence why the browser preference discussion is irrelevant.

But even if one was to put up with this limitation, there is no apparent discernible advantage in speed anyway at very high tab levels. And even if there was such an advantage "in theory", in practice it is negated by clumsy tab handling, ie. it takes time to select/scroll from a very long list, as opposed to easily select from multi-rows.

Got to add my 2 cents. i had the same peoblem with 100-300 tabs- I run a 3930k, m4 SSD, 1200W antex, 32gb samsung ram - I had an old Quadro card (128 mb - FX 1200) and it was lagging like mad. Changed the card - GEforce 550t- = no more lag. Someone said the RAM, someone said CPU and another said GPU - you guys are all right, but if you have a crappy GPU it will NOT matter how much RAM you have or your CPU. I OC'd mine to 4.7 and it still lagged. And yes 8-12gb ram is about all anyone needs for day to day stuff, 16gb would be ideal. I dont think I have ever gone beyond that unless I have never seen it. As I type this I have 300 tabs, adobe audition, adobe photoshop, a few p2p programs, chat, 2 media players, 3 other browsers with 10 tabs each, 2 monitors, word, some other bits and pieces and I am at 12.5 GB RAM and 6% CPU.

Got to add my 2 cents. i had the same peoblem with 100-300 tabs- I run a 3930k, m4 SSD, 1200W antex, 32gb samsung ram - I had an old Quadro card (128 mb - FX 1200) and it was lagging like mad. Changed the card - GEforce 550t- = no more lag. Someone said the RAM, someone said CPU and another said GPU - you guys are all right, but if you have a crappy GPU it will NOT matter how much RAM you have or your CPU. I OC'd mine to 4.7 and it still lagged. And yes 8-12gb ram is about all anyone needs for day to day stuff, 16gb would be ideal. I dont think I have ever gone beyond that unless I have never seen it. As I type this I have 300 tabs, adobe audition, adobe photoshop, a few p2p programs, chat, 2 media players, 3 other browsers with 10 tabs each, 2 monitors, word, some other bits and pieces and I am at 12.5 GB RAM and 6% CPU.

The 550 ti is a low end card. The Quadro seems to be such an ancient artifact that even integrated graphics these days would destroy it. (I know that the 3930k does not have integrated graphics)

Your logic would dictate that upgrading my Celeron D and 512 Mb of RAM would produce no tangible benefits if I upgraded either of them. Well, not only is Firefox's RAM usage easily over 1GB and I can hear the pagefile action, the 3.2 Ghz Prescott noticeably improved the horrible loading times and lag in the system.

You're also using 78% of the RAM in your system. You want overhead because the pagefile swapping will introduce lag. 12 GB would mean the sticks are 100% full and the pagefile needs to take on the extra data.

Yeah, I think in reeltapes case there was a significant bottleneck on the GPU, whereas it's the CPU and RAM for most others. That old Quadro is basically worthless--even a modern CPU's iGPU will be better. My old 2009 Macbook runs out of RAM, while my brother's old laptop had too weak of a processor.